Check Out Tony Justice’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tony Justice.

Hi Tony, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
My love and passion for music started at a very early age. I started playing bass guitar in my Mom’s gospel group at the age of 6. I continued playing into my late teens in church in the East Tennessee area. In 1991, I met Rick Cogburn from Newport, TN. He was a great singer and songwriter and had a weekend gig in Gatlinburg, TN. He was needing a bass player and asked if I would be interested. He said it didn’t pay enough to pay me but he would split tips with me and said free beer would be involved. I was sold. Haha!

After a couple of weekends of playing, he had me sing a few songs and I was hooked. He also caught my attention with his writing. So, I started playing around with it and wrote my 1st song called This Old House. I played it for him and he said I should enter an upcoming songwriters competition at TG Sheppards’ “North Of The Border” Mexican restaurant in Gatlinburg. So I did, and even though all the other writers had 3 songs they could perform I won the competition with the single song I had.

I hadn’t really won at anything in my life before and so it began. Here I am 33 years later, with my own Independent Record Label and Publishing company with songs that have received over a million streams and hundreds of thousands of downloads, and 150,000 albums sold. Not breaking any records by no means, but we’re surviving in a sink-or-swim industry and doing it our own way, I am writing and recording the songs I want to and not being handled by the industry suits and told what to do. We take a lot of pride in that!

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
A smooth road??? About as smooth as a wagon trail I’d guess. On a good day that is. It’s been a long, hard, and challenging journey, but I am thankful for every bit of it. That journey is what has shaped me into the artist that I am today. Now that I have reached the level where I am currently, looking back, those were the easy days. Having your music finally become relevant is a long and difficult road for most. Once it becomes relevant, the next battle is keeping it relevant. That’s the point where you either have to get a record deal or learn how to run a successful Label and Publishing company yourself.

One alone is overwhelming, much less both. Now, I can’t take the credit for being the one who figured all that out. I have been blessed, beyond measure, to have a wife (Misty Justice) who has the ability to go down a “rabbit hole” for a few days with books and a computer and come out knowing more than someone who took 4 years of music business classes at Belmont. The biggest struggle along the way was trying to keep my confidence up. That’s a little easier these days, but I still have some struggles with it.

At the end of the day though, I’m getting to do what I love which is make music! As long as I get to do that, then I feel I am beyond blessed no matter the level of success I achieve or don’t achieve and I will never have any regrets.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have been a family man since 1990. A family-first kinda guy and not the kind willing to pack my family up and have them have to make sacrifices for my dream by going to Nashville and playing for tips and knocking on doors. So, a good job was at the top of my priority list and I did music in my spare time. In 2000 I got my CDL and hit the big road. That’s where I discovered the best writing room in the world, the cab of my Peterbilt 379! It has the best office view in the world and there was inspiration around every corner and just beyond every new horizon. I was running 3,500 to 4,500 miles a week, and it gave me all kinds of time to write and so many things to write about. So, I just started writing songs about what I did.

As it turns out, there are a lot of folks that do what I did which was drive trucks. In fact, globally. there are millions of truck drivers and my music resonated with a large percentage of them. I’ve always said, “The best trucking songs have already been written, but we have all heard them a million times.” Finally, there are some fresh new trucking songs for those men and women who sacrifice so much to keep this country rolling. I persevered and after so many years of hard work, and a little luck, I was able to find “my niche”. So basically I drove trucks and worked on my music for 22 years and now it’s finally paying off. I am able to do what I have always dreamed of doing which is making a living writing and playing music.

I guess you can say I specialize in writing songs for the blue-collar working class. The ones who actually keep America operating day in and day out that the suits and ties in Washington try and take credit for. From truckers to construction workers, waitresses, warehouse workers, Oil rig workers, etc. And I am damn proud and honored to have been blessed with the opportunity to do so.

I’d say I’m most known for being the guy who kept on working his day job long after my music became relevant. You can say I “passed the sniff test from my peers” (haha) and they knew I was no different than them. They knew I was in the same trenches as they are day in and day out which created an extremely supportive fan base. Not only do my fans relate to my music and me but they also know I can relate to them. That’s not easy to accomplish as an artist, but as fate would have it, it happened for me and I am extremely grateful that it did because it makes my music and my story real, and to be honest, there isn’t much “real” left in this world today

I’m most known for my song “Last Of The Cowboys”. First, it was my “Brothers Of The Highway” single I recorded with Aaron Tippin. But in 2019, we released a video for “Last Of The Cowboys” and out of now where the video went viral with over 1 million views within the first hour and a half that it was posted. That was the song that turned my hobby into a business!!!

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I am just being myself and proud of my God, values, and family. And I genuinely express that with my followers. I also take the time to communicate with them on social media, liking all their comments, replying to a lot of their comments, and answering as many messages as I can from them.

They are the ones who are allowing me to live this dream and will always take priority above anything else other than God and my family.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tonyjusticemusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetonyjustice/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tonyjusticemusic/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/thetonyjustice?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/tonyjustice2712